


Am I Human or Merely Alive?

by OhNoMyBreadsticks



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Existential Crisis, Friendship, Gen, Hank Anderson & Connor Friendship, Heart-to-Heart, Identity Issues, Post-Peaceful Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:46:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25140334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhNoMyBreadsticks/pseuds/OhNoMyBreadsticks
Summary: After the revolution, some things simply change while others remain the same. Androids are alive now, Connor moves in with Hank, the world continues to turn without a problem.Except...maybe things aren't quite as simple for an android like Connor.
Relationships: Hank Anderson & Connor, Hank Anderson & Connor & Sumo
Comments: 8
Kudos: 67
Collections: New ERA Discord: Reverse Big Bang





	Am I Human or Merely Alive?

**Author's Note:**

> I participated in the New ERA Birthday Reverse Big Bang and got to work with the talented @el_ray_ciervo! They drew a wonderful picture of Hank and Connor discussing identity over a drink and I got to write what I think is my first gen fic for the two of them! It was a blast, I hope you enjoy C: 
> 
> Check out the fantastic art [here](https://twitter.com/el_rey_ciervo/status/1280694239924543488) as well as in the fic

Coming home to find the lights on was still something he was going to have to get used to, Hank thought dryly, pulling the car into the driveway and killing the engine. He had spent so long coming home to an empty dark house, it was still a shock to walk up to the door and know that someone else was inside, no doubt busying himself with dinner or chores or something else horribly productive. That he’d open the door and be greeted by a cheerful voice and not just the gentle boof of Sumo waking up from his nap. Really, the shock was that Hank wasn’t alone any more.

Connor had moved in directly following the revolution, much to no one’s surprise except for Hank, apparently. Sure, they had gotten close over the course of the deviancy investigation, but he had just kind of _assumed_ Connor would move in with his new high roller android friends now that he was an integral part of the fight for android rights. Apparently not, as Connor had asked very hesitantly if they could move their professional workplace relationship to ‘roommates’ instead. His earnest expression had gotten Hank laughing before he clapped a hand to the android’s shoulder and agreed wholeheartedly.

Connor was a good guy, after all. Hank had grown fond of him as they worked together, despite, you know, the animosity at times on both sides. He supposed he had deserved a lot of it, and Connor must feel the same way to have forgiven him so thoroughly. It had been no surprise when he left the police department to go and work for Jericho, but they parted ways as coworkers with good feelings all around. Hank had even chipped in for the little ‘going away’ gift of a mug that the department bought Connor (which doubled as a ‘sorry for treating you like an object’ present from half of them, but that was besides the point). 

And now that they were no longer coworkers, Hank had to admit that they were...friends. Yeah, friends was a good word for it. Although god only knew the last time Hank had managed to have a friend, and it wasn’t like they ever really said it out loud. They had pleasant conversations after work, watched TV in the evenings, and walked Sumo together on the weekends. Now that he didn’t have to grapple with the big existential question of whether or not Connor was _alive_ , Hank could just treat him like anyone else. Well, not quite like everyone else, since he hadn’t managed to drive him away yet.

Pushing those thoughts away, Hank pushed open the door to the house, greeted as expected by a cheerful “Hello Hank!” echoing out of the kitchen, and a happy boof as Sumo lumbered out to him. Even with Connor in the kitchen (cooking, from the smell of it), that old dog still came to greet his master. It was silly, but touching in a way. Toeing his shoes off, Hank hung up his coat and gave Sumo the pets he was demanding before making his way to the kitchen.

And there was Connor, in the kitchen, cooking up a storm, blue sweater rolled up to his elbows to keep it clean. Clean was important to Connor. He looked up from the bubbling pot and waved at Hank cheerily before turning back to his stirring. 

“I’ve told you before, you don’t gotta cook my dinner every night” Hank said with a chuckle, shuffling over to the cupboard and pulling out a few glasses, “You don’t even get to enjoy what you cook, what’s the point.” It didn’t make sense to him, but he’d never been able to to talk Connor out of it. Who knew, maybe it was enjoyable to him some other way. Hank had certainly never found cooking enjoyable. He mostly lived off of frozen meals and carry out, and it hadn’t killed him yet.

Instead of the usual cheerful retort from Connor, the android was silent as he continued to stir the pot. It was enough to have Hank glancing over at him even as he headed to the fridge to grab something to drink. The beer was gone, cleared out of the house after Connor moved in, and it was at times like this that Hank wished it wasn’t. Because looking over at the android showed his expression to be one of unusual distress, brows furrowed and mouth pulled into a tight line. As soon as he noticed Hank looking, and of course he noticed Hank looking, Connor’s face completely changed, the familiar smile sweeping any worries away. But it was hollow, none of the usual joy behind it.

Something was wrong.

Sighing softly to himself, Hank grabbed the juice he had been angling for from the fridge, pouring himself a glass and then grabbing a pouch of thirium for Connor which he poured into the second glass. He couldn’t claim to understand how android biology worked, but it had always seemed weird to drink what was essentially your own blood. The pouch had this weird cap to it as well, which was always hard to twist open, but he managed after a few tries. Drinks acquired, Hank took them to the table and waited for Connor to join him.

It didn’t take long, really, the silence stretching out between them in a way that’s both familiar and uncomfortable. Hank had gotten used to a certain amount of chatter from his roommate, which is what made the silence odd in that moment. It wasn’t the comfortable silence of watching TV and letting the commentator’s voice fill the room, it was a silence of ‘nothing to say’ or, in a way, saying _nothing_ explicitly. Once the soup was finished, Connor took it off the heat and went to grab a bowl, but before he could, Hank stopped him. 

“Have a seat, Con” Hank said, gesturing to the chair across from him at the table. It wasn’t meant to be an order, but it almost came out that way, and he wished he was better at these sorts of conversations not in a work setting. He sounded like he was inviting Connor to an interrogation, and that was very weird indeed. But Connor didn’t even blink (he didn’t need to, after all, but he did most of the time just for appearance’ sake), sitting down and taking a sip of his thirium, calm and collected as always.

When the silence continued, and Connor didn’t appear ready to share, Hank decided to probe again. “If you’ve got something on your mind, you can tell me.” Hank offered, “And don’t try and tell me you don’t.” That got half a smile out of Connor, as he commented wryly “I can’t get anything past a lieutenant, can I?” The way he said ‘lieutenant’ was so reminiscent of the way he sounded when they first met, Hank could almost taste the liquor from Jimmy’s bar on his tongue. 

“You can’t.” Hank replied with a half smile of his own, “Better to get it all out, before I set my police dog on you.” Sumo, who was lying under the table in prime scrap acquisition position, didn’t even look up at the word ‘dog’, too lazy to beg tonight. There was another silence, but this one felt loaded, as if Connor was putting the words together in his mind before he set them loose on the world.

“Am I human to you, Hank?” Connor finally asked, brown eyes flicking up from his glass to meet Hank’s gaze. The question was simple, but it took Hank by surprise. With everyone and their brother talking about whether or not androids were alive, the question of whether they were human or not seemed...odd. Out of place. After a few moments of consideration, Hank shook his head.

“Not human, no. You’re an android, Connor, even if android doesn’t mean the same things it used to.” He explained, unsure if he was being politically incorrect or not in his answer, or if he was digging his own grave in terms of offending the being sitting across from him. Instead of becoming agitated, or upset, Connor simply nodded, looking back down at his glass. 

“So you’d consider me an android, then? Like all the others?” He asked, and when Hank replied with a hum of approval he laughed. Not a loud, full-bellied laugh, but a soft laugh that barely parted his lips. 

“I think, Hank, that you’ve finally made the problem clear.” Connor said, “I’m not a human to a human, but I’m not an android to other androids.” 

“What does that mean?” Hank asked, feeling as though the problem had, in fact, become less clear in the last few minutes he had become aware of it. “You’re not an android to other androids? But you do all the android stuff with them.” He said, thinking of all the times he had seen Connor interfacing with the androids from Jericho, or relaying messages he had received in his head via android brainwaves or whatever.

“I suppose from a purely physiological standpoint they consider me an android.” Connor admitted thoughtfully, “And none of the leaders of Jericho would ever _say_ it, no, but…” He paused, licking his lips in a thoroughly unnecessary gesture before continuing “But I am not like them. A prototype, a tool, a hunter. I’m not _like them_ , Hank, and we all know it.” 

Before Hank could say anything Connor was leaning back in his chair and continuing to speak, his tone becoming less controlled and more frantic, certain syllables too harsh or too fast as they tumbled out of his lips. “So we go through this song and dance, every day, in and out. Me, with my funny little rituals to fool humans into thinking I’m one of them, and my silly little attempts to fit in with other androids. Except none of it’s working. It doesn’t matter, none of it does, because I’ll never fit in. Ever. Not even here, with you.”

That’s the point at which Hank couldn’t take it any more, and he cleared his throat to stop Connor from speaking further. 

“Now,” He said, speaking slowly and carefully, a balance to Connor’s outpouring of words, “I don’t remember saying you didn’t fit in here. Just that you weren’t human.” Hank paused, then asked the question that was most pressing on his mind. “What kinds of things do you do to try and “fool” me into thinking you’re human, anyways?” 

Connor shrugged, the only indication of his discomfort the way his fingers had begun to fidget with the rim of his glass. He always needed to move his fingers when he was nervous, Hank knew that’s why he had that coin. 

“Cooking dinner. Analysing things with my synthetic skin in the way when it’d be easier to do it without. Drinking thirium out of a glass. Human-like things.” He explained eventually, his skin peeling back to reveal the white of his chassis all the way up to his wrist as if to give an example. These four little sentences had Hank reeling with new information, but he did his best not to show that. This wasn’t about him, it was about Connor. The easiest one to tackle was the thirium, so he started with that.

“You don’t have to drink it out of a glass?” Hank asked, gesturing at the unassuming blue liquid. Connor shook his head, explaining “It’s less efficient this way. The pouch has an access tube I can plug directly into an oral port. But it’s disconcerting to watch, or so I’ve heard.” That damn fiddly little cap finally had a reason behind it at least, Hank supposed. 

“Anyways, I appreciate that you poured me a drink.” Connor said suddenly, as if he didn’t want Hank to get the wrong idea, “It’s not your fault, you didn’t know. You’re very...kind to me, as a roommate. I try to repay that with the cooking, and, you know.” He gestured around the house, to encompass the massive cleaning projects he had undertaken, the ones that Hank had felt terribly guilty about.

“You don’t have to do that.” Hank said softly, then more firmly repeated “You don’t have to cook if you don’t want to. Or drink out of a glass. Fuck, Con, I don’t give a shit about that stuff.” Connor gave him an incredulous look, and Hank rolled his eyes, replying “Look, I’ve been around the block. You’re a good roommate already, you do more than your share of the dishes and you pay me rent for some godforsaken reason, and you take care of Sumo while I’m gone. Don’t add ‘pretend to be human’ onto this imaginary contract you’ve drawn up between us.”

“You don’t owe me some false facade of humanity. That’s not how this works.”

Connor was silent then, for a long time, his thumbs circling the glass in perfect patterns. His LED, which Hank had become so accustomed to that he almost forgot it existed half the time, spun amber on his temple. Eventually he looked back up at Hank again, and there was something so vulnerable in his eyes that he almost seemed human in that moment.

“What will I be, then? If I stop pretending? It still won’t make me an android in their eyes.” He asked, and something in Hank’s chest ached for him. Meeting his gaze unflinchingly, Hank shook his head and offered a half of a smile.

“I think you’ll just be Connor. Someone I’m proud to call my friend.” He said, hoping that to admit it out loud wasn’t overstepping any boundary. To his relief, Connor returned the smile - hesitant at first, then growing in confidence. 

“I think I could live with that.”

Live indeed, with all the baggage that entailed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed :D Again, make sure to check out this fantastic [artist](https://twitter.com/el_rey_ciervo/status/1280694239924543488) and give them your appreciation!
> 
> Any and all kudos or comments will be loved and cherished <3 I'm available on [tumblr](https://ohnomybreadsticks.tumblr.com/) if you ever feel like chatting or reading some of my lil drabbles, I’d love to see you there C:


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